Coinify Aims to Increase European Bitcoin Market Presence in 2016
Amid market instability and intense competition in the Bitcoin industry, Coinify has successfully established itself as one of the leading European Bitcoin startups through acquisitions of rival firms, partnerships, and development of merchant-specialized bitcoin services.
Because of its successful expansion throughout Europe, in February of 2015, the Coinify team moved its headquarters to Herlev Hovedgade, Denmark. Since then, the firm rapidly began to dominate the European Bitcoin space, acquiring its competitor Coinzone in August.
Prior to the acquisition, the Amsterdam-based bitcoin payment gateway Coinzone launched various bitcoin services tailored for European users, such as a European bitcoin wallet, enabling users to spend bitcoins locally with a fully compliant bitcoin wallet.
“Coinzone’s established presence in Europe, especially in the most active countries of France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Romania, and the recent market entries in the U.K., the Czech Republic and Poland – is 100% in line with our strategy to accelerate the expansion in these important markets,” said Coinify CFO and Head of Strategy Christian Visti.
Achieving another significant milestone since February, the Coinify team quickly began to disperse throughout Europe, attracting venture-backed corporations such as online food takeaway and delivery company Hungry and meal alternative shake manufacturer Queal.
“Customers are very open to using the latest and most technologically advanced ways of paying. Bitcoins, via Coinify, are one way that allows our customers, who are mostly technically savvy, to use new technologies. Bitcoins are still very unpredictable and at Queal we like that Coinify processes it back to euros so we don’t have to take any of the risks,” said Queal co-founder and CEO Floris Wolswijk.
With an aim to encourage more merchants and businesses in Europe to integrate bitcoin, Coinify secured partnerships with various local payment service providers, including PensoPay, Webteh, EuroPayment Services, Hello Markets, DigixGlobal, and Payssion, providing opportunities for tens of thousands of merchants to offer bitcoin as an payment option.
Coinify has also become the first bitcoin payment processor to partner with an Ethereum-based company DigixGlobal, creating an unexpected synergy between blockchain-based platform for applications and Bitcoin.
“We have looked at other payment processors and found Coinify to be the best in terms of service, reliability, and willingness to innovate with young companies in Asia. Now end users can easily purchase crypto assets on Ethereum with bitcoin,” Digix co-founder and CEO Kai Cheng Ching said, when the partnership was first announced..
Joining forces with one of Europe’s largest payment processors, EuroPayment Services, has allowed Coinify to develop an online presence in Romania, and raise bitcoin awareness and merchant adoption in the country with an already established financial platform.
Coinify regional manager Mihai Manoliu emphasized that the integration of bitcoin by EuroPayment Services resulted an increase in bitcoin accepting merchants acting in tourism and ticketing.
“We have discovered a very interesting community of Bitcoiners in Romania that is constantly growing. Therefore we are eager to start offering services to this community,” EuroPayment Services sales manager Razvan Manzu stated.
In 2016, Coinify has plans to engage with new blockchain technology adopters and raise global merchant bitcoin adoption. By providing bitcoin services to over 500 million people residing in the SEPA-supported region, the Coinify team aims to provide digital currency merchants processing solutions available to more businesses globally.
